New Yorkers pay more for electricity than anywhere else in the contiguous United States. In fact, we pay 42.4 percent more than the national average. So what is the state's own power producer doing giving away money?

The New York Power Authority was created in 1931 to "provide for the most beneficial use of the Niagara and St. Lawrence rivers in the development of hydroelectric power while maintaining and preserving these natural resources." It wasn't created as a source of government largesse.

Now, as we learned in a report critical of NYPA's spending last August from Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the authority has more than 1,600 employees, revenue of $2.8 billion and power plants across the state. It is one of the state's largest public authorities and the biggest public power utility in the nation.

It is also one of the state's golden geese: The Times Union's James M. Odato reported this week that NYPA will turn over $20 million this year and an expected $5 million next year to the state's treasury.

But Odato also found that the authority has been handing out tidy sums to groups as disparate as local fire departments and the Women's Research and Education Fund in Westchester County. NYPA has doled out more than $700,000 in the last three years under loose guidelines allowing it to support entities around its various power plants, and those having something to do with energy.

To be fair, NYPA has shown more restraint than it used to. In past years, it gave out more than $1 million annually, prompting criticism from, of all people, then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is now governor and in a better position to demand that the authority stick to its mission.

It's not that the authority's grants aren't going to worthwhile causes — first responders and women and minority advocacy groups, for example, deserve support. But there's a more fundamental issue here.

Why is this authority amassing such wealth, paying fully a third of its employees more than $100,000 annually — some more than the governor's salary of $179,000 — and doling out what has all the look and smell of pork? Why, if it has extra funds on hand, is this public authority not finding a way to ensure that the money is used for the broadest possible benefit?

NYPA touts on its website that it produces "some of the cheapest electricity in North America," which it sells to utilities. By choosing to feed itself and its hand-picked grant recipients, the rest of us are often shocked when that electricity bill lands with a thud each month.

Here's an idea: Why not use that money to help bring down the cost of electricity for New York residents and businesses — exactly in line with NYPA's purpose? Or how about putting it into the state treasury, where the best use of those dollars can be debated by elected officials, rather than bureaucrats in a shadow government?